Automotive Industry Launches W3C Group for Bringing Web to Cars

http://www.w3.org/ — 21 February 2013— W3C announced today
the new Automotive and Web Platform
Business Group to accelerate the adoption of Web technologies in the automotive industry. The group convenes developers, automotive manufacturers and suppliers, browser vendors, operators and others to discuss how
to enhance driving, safety, and passenger entertainment with
the Open Web Platform. The group will first focus on defining a Vehicle Data API that will create new opportunities for automotive services via the Web.

"The W3C's API initiative arrives just as OEMs are laying the groundwork to bring the browser into the car via multiple means," said Roger C. Lanctot, associate director in the Global Automotive Practice at Strategy Analytics. "Car makers will be looking to the W3C to help identify best practices for over the air software updates and security and the launch of the new Business Group will provide the ideal forum for those conversations."

Mobility is Driving Industry Convergence

W3C first explored the impact of
the Open Web Platform on the automotive industry
at the November 2012 Web and
Automotive Workshop. Participants discussed how
location-based services, enhanced safety, entertainment, and integration
of social networking will benefit drivers and passengers. In addition,
they looked at business drivers for Web technology adoption
such as the ability to attract customers with convenient and
innovative services, maintain ongoing customer
relations, address regulatory requirements, manage mobile payments,
and lower development costs.

The more than 40 organizations that participated
in that conversation expressed broad consensus that HTML5 is a
compelling platform for providing these services and lowering the
risk of fragmented solutions. The new Automotive and Web Platform
Business Group picks up where the Workshop left off.

"Open standards are essential to the successful evolution of in-car telematics and infotainment, and HTML5 offers the right platform to build automotive apps, create innovative services, and enable automobiles to become first-class citizens of the Web," said Andy Gryc, automotive product marketing manager at QNX Software Systems. "I'm thrilled at the prospect of contributing to the group and its mandate of defining an industry-standard Vehicle Data API."

W3C Business Groups give W3C Members and non-Members a vendor-neutral forum for collaboration on the development of the Web in the near-term. Business Groups do not create W3C standards, but they do develop reports, use cases, requirements, and other forms of input to the W3C standardization process.

Media Contact

Testimonials

ACCESS

ACCESS welcomes the launch of the Automotive and Web Platform Business
Group. As a global provider of one of the most advanced HTML5-based
WebKit browsers for beyond PC markets including in-vehicle infotainment
(IVI), we believe the formulation of an open Web standard for
automotive should enhance the integration of fast-growing
Web technologies into automotive technology and accelerate the
evolution of cars. We also believe web technology has great potential
to evolve to become the key technology to control whole IVI systems,
along with the growth of EV market. As a Member of both W3C and
Genivi, we look forward to supporting the popularization and
international standardization of Web technology in the automotive
industry.

- Kunihiro Ishiguro, Chief Technology Officer, ACCESS CO., LTD.

AKQA

As we move towards a world where everything is connected, the car will become even more central to an individual’s life than it is today. From our depth of experience in developing connected car solutions, we know the possibilities for the future are infinite. AKQA is proud and excited to be part of the W3C Automotive Business Group. We are looking forward to collaborating with some of the best automotive people in the world: to create and validate standards that will support seamless digital connectivity between the car, driver, passengers and wider.

- Ben Jones, Chief Technology Officer, AKQA

BMW

The Web Platform is of great importance for BMW and we are very interested in the possibility of utilizing industry standards within the automotive environment. Furthermore, we believe web technologies will play an important role in the future for us – enabling rapid development of infrastructure and applications by taking advantage of both a proven and robust platform as well as a broad base of developers.

- Maximilian Michel, Domain Architect Browser, BMW AG

DFKI

The mobile Web has not yet reached our main means of mobility: cars. DFKI regards automotive as key for developing innovative, ubiquitous & productive Car2X services. Via traffic and danger warnings, the standardization of Car2Car communication will also improve traffic flow and safety. And we need a standardized API for seamless integration of automotive infotainment infrastructure and smart, personalized devices.

- Reinhard Karger, Corporate Spokesperson, DFKI

eBay / PayPal

Automobiles are mobile devices too, and the same challenges apply. PayPal and eBay are very pleased to see W3C moving ahead with standards for the 21st century Internet and look forward to participating in this effort. Both in the area of developing new standards and harmonizing globally among multiple competing technologies, W3C has a role to play in the future of connected driving.

- Daniel Austin, Principal Architect, PayPal

KDDI

Automotive is a new frontier for web services, and their convergence brings rapidly evolving technologies into an automotive industry. As a result, a car driving will become a total life support experience that supports seamless services from home to a car. Furthermore, it will also assist human to live more exciting and sustainable life. On the other hand, safety is the most important requirement, and collaboration of automotive and web industry is necessary for the successful innovation of the life. Therefore, KDDI strongly support the establishment of Web and Automotive Business Group.

Openstream

Openstream, as one of the co-authors of the W3C Multimodal Architecture Standard and a contributor to several web speech and open source initiatives, is very pleased to share its expertize in context-aware multimodal technology and collaborate with partners in the automotive industry to promote the application of context-aware multimodal technology and interfaces for bringing web to cars as part of the W3C Automotive and Web Platform Business Group.

- Raj Tumuluri, President, Openstream Inc

Visteon

As one of the major automotive Tiers 1, Visteon is investigating various technologies to create an appropriate eco-system to speed up the HMI development for his Customers: Visteon has clearly identified that Web technologies can tremendously reduce the time-to-market for automotive solutions. The adoption of HTML5 will definitely contribute in creating quickly apps which will enrich the features set proposed by the OEMs to their Customers.

As a member of GENIVI, Visteon reinforces its strategy to provide Open solutions on his platforms by joining the W3C Automotive and Web Platform Business Group. Through this business group participation, Visteon wants to share his experience and specify his needs taking also into account the efforts already done by the GENIVI domain to correlate both initiatives.

- Pierre Sigrist, Software Manager, Visteon

Vodafone

Vodafone Group R&D is happy to support the new W3C Automotive Business Group. We have been working together with the W3C for a while in activities such as the Web and Automotive Workshop last November in Rome. We believe such activities and this Business Group are key in order to push the adoption of Web technologies in cars and bring automotive applications to the masses. Doing so has the potential of creating new opportunities for developers, service providers and a wealth of choice of car applications for users.

Standardization of a Vehicle API will boost interoperability regardless of manufacturers and enrich automotive applications with vehicle data, which would increase security and user control. We believe the W3C is the right organization to ensure correct design and sandboxing of such an API so that it does not interfere with other vehicle functions; they have already been doing this for years, i.e. standardizing a large number of Web APIs that run securely in the browser's runtime. We look forward to starting collaboration with other industry players through this business group.

Webinos

Promoting a 'single service for every device' vision, webinos delivers an open source platform that securely connects all user's devices, such as mobile phones, TV sets and in-car units. In that context, webinos was a proud sponsor of the Nov. 2012 W3C Web and Automotive workshop that led to the creation of this exciting newly launched W3C Automotive and Web Business Group.